Multiverser
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| Multiverser | |
|---|---|
| Designer(s) | unknown |
| Publisher(s) | Valdron Inc. |
| Publication date | 1997 |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy/Science fiction |
| System | Custom |
| http://www.mjyoung.net/ | |
Multiverser is a multi-genre role-playing game published by Valdron Inc. that has the player character moving from dimension to dimension with each dimension being based on varying rules of reality which determine what is possible in that dimension. Reality is governed in four skill areas: Body, Technology, Psionics, and Magic.
- Body refers to bio-chemistry and organics (this includes inorganic lifeforms as well), defining what is possible for organic life in a given world.
- Technology refers primarily to traditional physics and the behavior of equipment and machines.
- Psionics or Inner Power (that is a natural ability of the being using such) refers to psychic phenomenon (from basic ESP to physically impossible acts of mind over matter).
- Magic or Outer Power covers not just spells, but the supernatural world at large, using the explanation that the ritual of a spell (a spell being anything from a prayer to alchemy) channels expectation of the spell-caster into a desired effect.
[edit] Metaphysics
Along with this explanation comes the system's supernatural order that divides magic into four categories: Arcane Magic, Alliance Holy Magic, Anarch Holy Magic, and Neutral Holy Magic. Arcane Magic is drawn from raw supernatural energy, while the other three call upon a deity to act through the magician. Alliance ("good") powers submit to the Creator, Anarch ("evil") powers do not, and the Neutral powers are undecided.
Note that "Neutral", as used here, does not mean the Dungeons & Dragons definition of Neutral alignment. Instead, a Neutral Multiverser Power is undecided about which side to favor, and often has interests which do not at all interact with nature. A Lord Tek who did not care whether technology was used for good or ill, but only that it was used, did not care who won the War in Heaven because he only found tech to be interesting would be a Neutral power.
Multiverser is not a generic role-playing game system like Hero System or GURPS, or cross-genre game like Rifts, but a "campaign system", with a discrete back story. The best comparison is the television series Sliders, but players are not limited to "mundane" alternate earths, with the same rules of reality as our own. "In the Multiverse, every story is true somewhere. There is no fiction." Everything is true in some universe.
The "plot immunity for heroes" problem drains excitement from action-adventure TV shows, and role-playing games. Multiverser retains the fear without game-ending consequences by letting a player character be killed, and then transferred to another material world to start another adventure. However, this means that the player was defeated and exiled from the first world.
This is achieved with a substance called scriff, a golden colored mercury-like substance that behaves like a liquid, but is not matter. It is an ether of sorts, binding the universes together and transporting the players. Players usually become infected with scriff when they suffer a deadly accident caused by a "scriff enhanced" appliance, though it isn't the only way to travel the Multiverse.
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